Jai Ho! जय हो!

Jai Ho!

Heylos Dost Log. Aaj khush toh bahut hoge tum, haain! (Pun intended) On the eve of the Independence Day of India, I have an urge to tell all my readers Jai Ho.

Confused? Ermm.. Let’s get back to what is going on in my mind. There is this little feeling of ‘nothingness’ going around for quite a sometime. Is it normal to feel so? Say na, please? Wait. How would you really say if I am not being clear in putting forward my thoughts on this post. This feeling creeps within me everyday, every morning, every time I leave for work, every time I touch the feet of Mom and Dad.

Ya. You kind of read that right! Every time I step of my house in the morning, I touch the feet of Mom and Dad. And in return they tell me Jai Ho!

I wonder why do they speak Jai Ho! I mean why not Amen! Why not Tathaastu? Why not Vijayee Bhavah? I joke around and tell them that they are acting as if they some die hard fans of musician A.R. Rahman.

Yes. To a certain extent, Jai Ho owes a small percentage of fame to musician Rahman. Had it not been his idea of making this an anthem, he wouldn’t have won an Oscar and in the process Jai Ho wouldn’t have become the signature of India. Jai Ho is, truly, the toast of the nation.

But again. The debate lies on why Jai Ho? Why not Amen, Tathaastu or Vijayee Bhavah?

To answer this, I came across an article by Mr. Devdutt Pattanaik who writes for a newspaper called Mid-Day. In this particular article, he makes us aware of the difference between Vijayee Bhavah and Jai Ho using the age old example of Mahabharata, an Indian epic narrated by sage Vyasa and written by Lord Ganesha.

In case you aren’t able to go through the article, I would like to be precise in detailing its contents. Jai Ho and Vijayee Bhavah mean the same i.e. “May You be Victorious”. He said that Jai and Vijay both mean “Victory”. The difference lies in its usage. He tells us the story of Yudhishtira, the eldest of Pandavas, reaching heaven and finding himself to be greeted by Kauravas including Duryodhana and Dusshasana. His mind filled up with anger and hatred. He asked the Devas (Gods) about his wife Draupadi and other brothers Bhima, Arjun, Nakul, Sahadeva and Karna. In reply, the Devas took him deep below the Earth’s crust at a place which was the opposite of heaven, gloomy, miserable and i.e. hell. He saw his family suffer and go through pain.

Yudhishtira couldn’t take this anymore and protested to the Gods that he can’t live in heaven if his family is in hell. The Gods smiled and replied that he got a chance to attain heaven because he had given up all his attachments on his way to death. But what he failed to give up was his anger, hatred and ego.

Upon realizing his mistake, he felt guilty about himself and took a dip in river Ganga to wash away his sins and thus attaining heaven.

And hence, Mahabharata doesn’t end at Pandavas’ victory over Kauravas and winning back their kingdom. It ends at Yudhishtira’s victory over himself and attaining heaven.

In practical world, people use Vijayee Bhavah to win in a battle, competition, war, etc. What they fail to use is blessing others or being blessed with Jai Ho. You aren’t truly victorious by defeating the visible enemies or competitors. You are victorious only when you defeat your invisible enemies. The enemies that are hidden deep within you in the form of anger, hatred, bloated ego, lust for power! That’s the sole purpose of teachings of Mahabharata. This mythological epic doesn’t teach, “You shouldn’t fight with your brothers.” It teaches, “You should learn to conquer the hidden demons inside yourself. In turn, you shall be able conquer the situation around you.”

It reminds me of India’s national anthem.

Jana gaṇa mana adhināyaka jaya hē
Bhārata bhāgya Vidhātā
Pañjāba Sindhu Gujarāṭa Marāṭhā
Drāviḍa Utkala Baṅga
Vindhya Himācala ẏamunā Gaṅgā
Ucchala jaladhi taraṅga
Tava śubha nāmē jāgē
Tava śubha āśiṣa māgē
Gāhē tava jaya gāthā
Jana gaṇa maṅgala dāyaka jaya hē
Bhārata bhāgya vidhātā
Jaya hē jaya hē jaya hē
Jaya jaya jaya jaya hē

For all my non-Indian friends, as in Wikipedia, the meaning of our anthem is:

O! Dispenser of India’s destiny, thou art the ruler of the minds of all people
Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat, the Maratha country,
in the Dravida country, Utkala and Bengal;
It echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas,
it mingles in the rhapsodies of the pure waters of Yamuna and the Ganges.
They chant only thy name.
They seek only thy auspicious blessings.
They sing only the glory of thy victory.
The salvation of all people waits in thy hands,
O! Dispenser of India’s destiny, thou art the ruler of the minds of all people
Victory to thee, Victory to thee, Victory to thee,
Victory, Victory, Victory, Victory to thee!

The emphasis is laid on “Jaya hē” which is equivalent to “Jai Ho”

When you are blessed with “Tathaastu” or “Amen” it means “So be it”. It means that may you get whatever you wish. May it be a good thing or a bad thing. When you are blessed with “Vijayee Bhavah” it means that may you be victorious against your enemies and competitors. But Mom and Dad taught me that the real blessing is only when your ethics win and when you are the conqueror of your vices. The logic is, if your morals and ethics can conquer your vices then there is no scope of competition and animosity.

One last piece of word, we all crib about the stale working government, corruption in the system. It is because we have encouraged them to do so. We all know this. We are reaping the fruits of the seeds of evil that we had sown. If charity begins at home then even evils begin from self.

On the eve of our Independence Day, I would like to clarify that I do support the noble cause and intentions of Anna Hazare. But let’s be honest. He has chinks in his armour in the form of people with double standards, selfish motives and vested interests. In my opinion, merely going on an indefinite hunger strikes or pinpointing bureaucrats and exposing scandals won’t really heal our problems. It will be possible only when we stop encouraging the so called people to embrace corrupt means.

It is time we start cleaning ourselves before trying to clean the system. If we follow rules the we don’t need to bend the rules. If we don’t bend the rules then we don’t need to encourage corruption, graft or forgery.

Moral of my lecture?

Dost log, I have just two words to say. Jai Ho! जय हो!….

… Because even India’s nation anthem says so.

“Jaya hē”

Jai Hind

Jai Ho!

Be Inspired… To Inspire

Heylos my dear Dost Log..

(By the way, isn’t it strange to find my blog post updated so fast? )

Every morning, before I leave for work, I have this tendency to pick up catfights with my sister or Mom. The reasons vary everyday. It’s like sometimes it’s about racing to get ready early or maybe not getting my favourite tees ironed or forcing me to have my breakfast when I am running late for work. Well.. Whatever maybe the reasons, the outcome turns out same. I lose all the time.

(Hello? There’s a reason for it. The judge is very biased. The judge prefers to hide his giggles behind the newspaper that he holds. Funnily, the judge is Dad. )

Ok.. So on my way to work, I have this habit of switching on my car radio and listen to the random talks by some RJ Malishka of 94.3 Red FM (errors and omissions expected) apart from the songs that get played (not laid )….

(FYI, the trip from my home to my work place is hardly a four-minute drive. But listening to these random talks on the radio channels are one of the reasons why I like driving.)

… Coming back to the point, so the theme of her show was ‘movies that inspire’.

(And by that she didn’t mean watching Border or L.O.C. Kargil and getting inspired to start a war with our ‘randomly specific’ neighbours.)

She spoke about the stories of her listeners like one person being inspired to pursue scuba diving after watching Zindagi Milegi Na Dobara, another one being inspired to conduct 43 blood donation camps after listening to a dialogue from Zanjeer when Pran donates his blood to Amitabh Bachchan and so on.

Somehow we all accept the fact that we like watching movies. Everyone likes watching movies because apart from seeking entertainment from them what we also seek is LESSON.

It is this factor called ‘lesson’ that actually inspires us to ape, to imitate or to behave as a protagonist or an antagonist does in a movie. Remember this, when we are watching a movie we are not merely ‘seeing’ it but actually ‘living’ it. We assume ourselves to be a part of that realistic situation which, in reality, may look hypothetical.

Now the question is how can one get inspired by an antagonist i.e. a villain, a negative character or someone with gray shade of personality? A simple answer to this question is watching Nasseruddin Shah’s character from the movie called A Wednesday.

Ok forget about being inspired by a protagonist or an antagonist. Sometimes we do get inspired from characters playing second fiddle to the lead character. (Eg. Ajay Devgan from Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam or Nicholas Cage from Kickass) No doubt these are just a few examples to name. But their motto has been the same… ‘to inspire’ us either directly or indirectly.

There are lot of movies to take inspiration from like Children of Heaven, The Kite Runner, The Pursuit of Happyness, The Shawshank Redemption, Tango Charlie, Heroes, Chak De India, Iqbal, Udaan, Dasvidaniya, The Bucket List, Invictus, Lagaan, The Legend of Bhagat Singh…

These are just a few movies that inspires us and most importantly teaching us an important lesson called HOPE. These are the movies that actually show us that every calamity in life, in fact, throws us an opportunity. An opportunity to overcome difficulties. An opportunity to rise like a phoenix from ashes. An opportunity to find a ray of light at the end of the tunnel. An opportunity to hope. An opportunity to inspire the present as well as the generations that will come by.

This reminds me of a very beautiful dialogue from The Shawshank Redemption: Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

So dost log… Moral of the story.. Watch movies.. To be inspired.. To inspire!

That’s all from my side. Good luck. And last but not the least.. Be inspired, stay inspired.. to inspire.

The Good, The Bad… The Confused

Heylos Amigos.. I mean my dear Dost Log. It has been quite a time since I updated myself. Well.. that’s the reason why I have been absent from the blog. And that’s the reason why I haven’t really been able to update my blog.

I have always maintained the fact that the core intent of an ideal blog is not about teaching or blabbering long written notes to the readers. It is about sharing knowledge gained through random experiences during the walks of life. It is about being honest with the self as well as the reader.

When a knowledge seeker gets stuck at some point of his life, he turns to a blog in order to either help him find a way or guide him pave a way towards the solution. This is what I have been working on, lately. Well, the intention is not to make it as an ideal blog but to share the experiences.

Having born and brought up as humans, we tend to go through certain stages of life, by default.

When we were kids, we went through being mischievous, getting attracted towards toys, board games, mini vehicles, remote controlled gadgets, free gifts, chocolates and many more to name. We kicked our legs, threw tantrums, cried hoarsely, acted like weirdos when our demands were never fulfilled. That was the period of innocence.

We grew up from kids to adolescence, a stage where we struck puberty and slowly evolved into teenagers. We got into the web of competitions among classmates, cronies, peers. We felt our hearts beating for the first time when we got into one-sided love (technically known as a crush). The pressure to perform as a student, as a team member, as a sportsman just got bigger and bigger. We grew, our demands increased and so did our range of emotions.

Teenage gone… We enter the phase of adulthood. A race begins to chase our dreams, achieve our targets, to get settled in life. We strive ourselves to the zenith of our limits to secure our future. A future that we are unsure of. Practically, we don’t even know if we shall be able to reap the benefits of the seeds that we are sowing at present.

Our approach towards life became more mudane, more devilish, more robotic and slowly the positive array of emotions faded away with time.

Now, according to me, anything can be classified into three categories:

The Good

The Bad

The Confused

The Good generally consists of positive things like happiness, smile, joy to add a few.

The Bad consists of negativity like sadness, anger, guilt, ego and so on.

The Confused consists of something that is unusually usual. Like sort of lethargy, not interested, least important and so on.

The way we approach our life is the way we actually live. It reminds me of a very popular thought that says, “It is good to be Good. It is good to be Bad. But it is bad to be Confused.”

Well… Most of the time of our lives pass away in confusion. We do things without having a knowledge whether it is good, whether it is bad, whether it is important, whether it is unimportant, whether it is going to be useful, whether it is useless.

It is sad to say the bitter truth but In the race to earn a living, we have forgotten how to live.

Of course, we would like to categorize ourselves into The Good. We may be unlucky to be in The Bad. But finding ourselves in The Confused category? We ourselves are to blame for it.

Are we actually living our lives? Or is it that we are living just for the sake of living? History has been the witness, we become what we choose. It is upto us to choose to be good, to be bad. But being confused? Nah! Nobody lasts longer in that category.

So here you are… These are your choices that will help you to lead your life! What do you prefer?

The Good? The Bad? Or as usual, The Confused?

What’s on your to-do list?

We laughed, We cried

We kept doing things

That people denied

Some left us dissatisfied

Some gave us serenity

Some kept us dignified

Some made us feel pity

Of all the things we did

With vested interests in mind

We failed to take care

Of what we have

And made our eyes turn blind

We drafted our goals

In our daily to-do lists

We scraped through them

With turns and twists

They said, “You’re alive

Only if you breathe.”

But are we truly alive?

Just because we breathe?

We learnt to exhale

We learnt to inhale

But sorely missed learning

To live hearty and hale

We all are different characters

Having the same story

We left behind worthwhile moments

To chase frivolous glory

Forget about this thought

As I write down the gist

To make sure you live

Your life today

What’s on your to-do list?

>Thank You, My Hero!

>Dear You,

Yes. This letter has been specially written and addressed to you. By the way, I would like to wish you Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening because I know that somewhere in this world you do exist, constantly thinking about my well being and welfare.

Firstly, I want to thank you for being my hero! Yes! You are my hero. And by reading this post, I just want to say thanks to my hero. The reason why I consider you as my hero is because you have gifted me a priceless thing in my life that no amount of wealth can buy me. Through this gift you have made it possible for me to achieve all the other tangible and intangible things that exist in the different nooks and corners of the universe. And that gift is HOPE.

When I was hungry with no food around, you gave me HOPE to satiate my hunger by hunting for food. When I was thirsty with no liquid, you gave me HOPE to quench my thirst by providing me water. When I fell down and failed to achieve my dreams, you gave me HOPE to get up and chase them till I reached my goals. When I couldn’t perform my tasks, when I couldn’t complete my challenges, when I gave up on numerous occasions in my life, you gave me HOPE to strive hard and motivate myself to come out as a winner. When I felt like giving up my life, you gave me HOPE and provided me a reason to live and to look forward in life. By giving me this gift called HOPE, you taught me and made me realise that the real winner isn’t the one who wins prizes and laurels but the one who wins the hearts.

We maybe known or unknown to each other. We may have seen or unseen each other. We may have talked as acquaintances and best of chums or we may have been strangers to each other. But still you proved to be my hero by knowingly or unknowingly providing me HOPE through your actions that may not have been of any relevance to you. Your actions may not have been pertinent to your own self. You may not be knowing what you have been doing or how your deeds are being a constant part of motivation for me. But still, through these ‘selfless’ actions of yours which may be petty or of meagre importance to you, you have constantly gifted me a priceless possession called HOPE.

You have entered my life in different forms and at different levels in my life. Sometimes you acted like parents who always thought good of their child, sometimes as a friend who always stood besides me at the hour of need and sometimes you came in the form of a rival or an opponent who motivated me to strive harder for success, to make you as an idol and to achieve any possible thing in life through your gift of HOPE.

Currently, you maybe reading this letter taking the form of my relatives, my friends, my acquaintances or maybe as one of the those lots who may not have anything to do with me, my happiness or my life. But still, I want to thank you for all the things that you have helped me to achieve or the things that I am tempted to achieve in future by making me see things clear in my life. This all would have been impossible for me had you not gifted me HOPE.

I wish to convey my joy with you because if you have succeeded in reading this post then I have succeeded in killing any unknown animosity between us. I have succeeded in removing this relationship tag called ‘strangers’ between you and me. You have reached at the bottom of this letter for one simple reason. Deep within your mind, heart and soul, it is the love and mutual admiration for me that has urged you to gift me HOPE.

I want to thank you for teaching me invaluable lessons that I have experienced in life because of the bad memories we may have had. I want to thank you for all the happiness that I have experienced by the good memories we may have shared. I want to thank you for this little gift called HOPE.

Finally, I want to thank you for reading this heartfelt letter and for being my hero!

Yours and only yours,
An admirer by the name of
Bhavin aka Bugs

>Koffee, Konversations, Karma and Konfessions

>

No matter how hard you suppress your feelings and emotions, someday.. somehow they shall erupt. No matter how often you fool the world or yourself, someday.. somehow they shall catch up with you in the form of KARMA.

-A not so random saying by a random person

(A heartfelt note: If you are reading this post or if you have been asked to read this post, it’s probably because you matter a lot to the person who asked you to do so and he/she might want to ‘confess’ that you are still one of those beautiful colours who has painted his/her happy life through the times that you have spent and the memories that you have created.)

Midnight… Three past something in the background clock… Fighting with the invisible demons to get some sleep. The demons then taking the form of memories.. Funny memories actually.. They make you laugh when you remember some odd tearful memories and they make you cry when you remember some odd funny memories.. All of a sudden an urge to make a coffee for self pops up.. An urge to switch on your gadget and get into conversation with a random friend online.. An urge to confess and spurt out odd things, hardly mattering, that have been suppressed for a long time.. Looks like the law of Karma has finally caught up..

Hello.. Welcome to “the Achilles tendon of life” that deals with Koffee, Konversations, Karma and Konfessions.

Let’s be honest. The title of this post sounds weird. I mean it ‘looks’ weird. But I have an explanation for it. Well, doesn’t my profile describe that Blogs by Bugs is all about writing, straight from the heart? Well, if this is the thing that is going on inside my mind and heart then how can it sound weird, eh?

Ever since we are born, there is one particular lesson that we have been taught. The lesson is a simple one-lined statement: The world is round or What goes around, comes around.

Isn’t this the same lesson that we have learnt in our play-schools, nurseries, schools, colleges, offices through the activities of our daily lives?

It was one of those odd midnights when I was fighting to get some sleep, out of blue I felt like pampering myself with a cup of coffee and then sitting idly, gaping at the continuous blinking of my screen with some random tweets on twitter, liking some funny updates of my friends on facebook and watching friends playing ‘hide-and-seek’ (read: online-offline) on my instant messenger. It made me realise how technology has become an indispensable part of our current lives.

Facebook inquires “What’s on your mind?”
Twitter inquires “What’s happening?”
(Did I miss mentioning Orkut? Probably that’s because it isn’t as addictive as earlier.)

And all we do is form the answers of these inquiries in 420 characters for Facebook and 140 letters for Twitter. It is so strange that we have become compulsive, dependant, habitual slave (read: user) of the social networking sites. They have made sure that we don’t feel it important to catch up with friends over a cup of coffee by constantly helping us update ourselves just by clicking a ‘share’ button. They have made sure that we don’t feel it important to have face-to-face conversations with our friend by providing the chat applications. They have made sure that we don’t find it important anymore to confess about those small, petty things that could make friends laugh when they feel sad and get into serious mode when things aren’t taken seriously.

… And finally the law of Karma catches up taking up the form of ‘loneliness’.

I wonder how many of us can recollect the days of past when…

1. Coffee was an excuse for everytime we wanted to multiply smallest reasons of our happiness with others and share the sorrows of our near and dear ones.
2. We just needed excuses to meet up with friends just to have conversations and have updates about daily lives of each other.
3. We used to confess the funniest things like having crush on our best friends’ lovers, gossiping about our best friends’ awkward moments, things that we dislike to the person whom we love.

If, TODAY, we are feeling lonely and having nobody to talk to then probably, this is the law of Karma… What goes around.. Comes around.

It is time we think of the times we have meted out bad treatment to the people who treated us good. It is time we think of the times we hoodwinked people when they needed us the most. It is time we think about the blanket of lies we draped on the people who loved us genuinely and without any kind of selfish reasons. It is time we think about the people whose wonderful conversations were enough to charge us up, when we needed them the most but we ignored them at the times of their sorrows. It is time we think to stop fooling with ourselves by toying around with the emotions and feelings who care for us.

If you, as a reader, think that the words written in this post make any sense or bear any authenticity then it is time to get back in touch with those cronies where “coffee” is just an excuse to catch up and have “conversations” about the happenings in each others’ lives or serving them with “confessions” where we went wrong.. It’s time you churn out your own ideas to put an emphasis on “coffee, conversations and confessions” and let “Karma” do rest of the job.

As for me… I have already had a good dose of Koffee, Konversations, Karma and Konfessions.

>The Sound Of Silence

>

The sound of silence
screams at its loudest
when mind and heart
refuse to work in sync
when lips refuse to smile
when eyes refuse to blink.

The sound of silence
tears apart your eardrums
when your life seems running smoothly
but out of blue you get a jolt
and your heart gets ripped apart
by actions like a concealed thunderbolt.

The sound of silence
is caused by an obscured wound
you know that it exists
inside you in form of pain
but tears freeze in your eyes
like a land without rain.

The sound of silence
destroys what nothing else can
like making it impossible
to confide in someone you trusted
and your supposedly happy world
suddenly goes busted.

The sound of silence
ruptures and punctures your life
when endlessly you get stabbed
with the veil of smart lies
your body physically lives
but your soul everyday dies.

The sound of silence
wobbles apart your world
when you think you feel guilty
for all the wrong things you bore
all that you feel all time
your life is synonymous to a whore.

The sound of silence
akin to eating a forbidden fruit
or committing an unforgivable sin
which lets you neither die nor lets you live
like an invisible scar that can never be healed
which lets you neither smile nor lets you grieve.

Ah! The Sound of Silence!